1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a lithography system.
2. Background Art
Recently, the electronics industry has developed method of creating integrated electronic devices that can be manufactured on a continuous strip, web, film, etc. of flexible material, such as polyester or MYLAR® (e.g., a flexible substrate). The flexible material typically has a thickness of only about 25 microns to about 150 microns, which can lead to stretching of the material. Stretching can cause distortion problems. Also, the flexible substrate is typically stored by rolling the flexible substrate up on spools. This type of operation is not compatible with existing lithography tool designs because feeding a continuous strip of material onto a precision substrate stage can interfere with the accuracy of the substrate stage's motion, inhibiting the achievement of overlay and imaging tolerances. Further, the flexibility of the flexible substrate and its dimensional stability can become more of a problem when micron size features are being patterned with quarter micron overlay.
Finally, the flexible substrate thickness also lends itself to variation with temperature variations.
Therefore, what is needed is a lithography system and method that allow for better control during lithographic processing of a flexible substrate, e.g., to unroll and roll the flexible substrate onto the machine so as not to interfere with precision scanning motions of a carriage holding a pattern generator when the flexible substrate is proximate an exposure area of the carriage.